Social networking and meeting the neighbors

Kottke reported that Wired quoted Friendster rep Lisa Kopp saying, Security isn't a priority for us. We're mostly focused on making the site go faster but now, it seems, that quote's been updated at the Wired site to read, Security is a big concern.

Hm. I'm sure Friendster wishes that was what Kopp had said. Kottke now links to a scanned copy of the original version. Not Watergate exactly, but how ham-handed can an organization be?

Speaking of social networking, a neighbor stopped by and talked with his nibs for a while over the Fourth weekend. Turns out James Hong, who co-founded hotornot.com, lives just two doors down. We knew a neighbor was connected because we'd occasionally see his hotster car with personalized plates parked up on Montgomery.

Hong, who was out of work when he and Jim Young started the site as a joke in October 2000, has had such success with hotornot that he never went back to the grind. He now spends full-time on hotornot and other sites he's involved with instead of having a "real" job. More power to him and to Young.

hotornot.com is booming without any advertising, just word of mouth. Hong, Young, &al. have morphed the site into a social networking/dating site for folks thirty years younger than I am.